Who We Are
by clarinet one
Summary: Chrissy Stark never gets the easy way out. Guess that's the price that comes with a stubborn father, an impatient mother, and a couple of friends that always seem to be right in her face.
1. Chapter 1

She doesn't know what overcomes her. But suddenly, her phone is on the floor in front of her. In pieces.

Which isn't a problem. Her father can build her a new one in a matter of minutes. And it's not like people actually talk to her, anyways.

Nonetheless, she sighs heavily and is careful when picking up the pieces of the trashed device. If broken glass is annoying, then shattered hardware is a bitch. The pieces go in the trashcan that sits to the right of her side table. There goes the third device this month.

Sure, she has anger management issues. Serious anger management issues. But she told her mother that she won't see a psychologist until she gets a suit. There goes that. So she finds ways to cope. Unfortunately, that happens to be destroying her cell phones. They're useless, and her mother has other ways to contact her if needed.

Eventually, she decided that hiding in her room isn't going to do her much good, so she heads for the floor several levels below the one her room is on, which happens to be where the kitchen is. Or at least she thinks. Because when she ends up on the floor that she affectionately named, "the sex room," she turns on the balls of her feet and right back into the elevator. She promises to herself that one day, hopefully soon, she will remember what floor the kitchen is on.

Today is not the day.

"JARVIS," she calls from the elevator. "What floor is the kitchen on?"

"_73, Miss Stark_," the computer replies. "_Would you like me to take you there?_"

"Yeah, sure," she says, and is almost taken aback when the elevator jerks to life underneath her feet. She assumes that it's just one of the perks that comes with having the elevator run by the computerized butler rather than pushing the button herself. (Hey, he offered. She wasn't going to pass up on an opportunity to be lazy.) But one of the things that continues to run through her mind is: why was she ten floors off?

Her mind is instantly off the subject as soon as she reaches the kitchen-slash-living room floor. She tries to enter unnoticed, but the _ding _of the elevator is kind of a dead giveaway. Why bother anymore? Her mother knows how to read her footsteps at this point, even though she's so light on her feet.

"Hello, Chrissy," she says, not looking up from what she's doing. Chrissy makes a noise that's supposed to symbolize a "hello" before falling onto one of the sofas and whipping out her tablet. Just because her phone is destroyed doesn't mean she has to be completely cut off from technology. She is a Stark, after all.

"Where's your phone?" her mother asks. (How can she even see Chrissy from over there?) Chrissy's shoulders tense. Her mother knows that when her phone is out of service, either broken or dead, she's on her tablet. Chrissy prefers the phone to the tablet. More privacy, and it fits better in her hand.

"Um," is the only reply she can think of. Her mother stops what she's doing to glare at her daughter.

"Did you break it?" she asks calmly. (There's a first.)

"I might've accidentally gotten really angry and thrown it…"

"Christine Alexandria Stark!" A rather exasperated sigh follows her full name. "I knew we should have gotten you a psychologist."

"Ew, no." Chrissy makes a face of disgust. "A shrink would only make it worse."

Another sigh from her mother. "Will you at least try it?"

"Absolutely not."

Hesitation. "You can have a suit." Pause. "If your father agrees, of course."

Chrissy contemplates this compromise, weighing the options. It's not like she had to go every week, or even make a commitment. It just means one appointment. Just one. In exchange for a suit. There was nothing to lose.

"Okay."

Bad idea.

* * *

"So your mom is making you go to a shrink?" her best friend laughs over the phone. "That's something I won't believe."

"It's for the suit, okay?" Chrissy grumbles. "And it's just one appointment. What could go wrong?"

"Famous last words."

She sighs and runs a hand through her reddish-brownish locks. "What are you doing today?"

"I thought you had to go to the shrink." More laughter.

"That's tomorrow." She hesitates before continuing. "Come on, Tori, save me from the misery that is the Tower."

"Misery?" A scoff comes from the other line. "The Tower is perfect. But you're lucky I'm bored. Be there in ten."

_Click._

* * *

The next day, she's sitting in the shotgun seat of her mom's extremely expensive silver car, the one that she takes to work and never, ever lets Chrissy drive in. Since she's dressed in her work clothes, Chrissy can only guess that she's going to drop her daughter off at the Barton's after her appointment with the shrink. No surprise. Her mother didn't have enough time to drive back to the Tower and make her meeting, and the Bartons live halfway in between the shrink and Stark Industries.

As they drive through the streets of New York City, Chrissy subconsciously zips her leather jacket up a little higher. Not that it's cold or anything. She's just worried about getting looks, or people recognizing her.

Like there's any stopping that. She closes her eyes, turns her music up a little louder, and gets lost in her own thoughts.

When the car pulls to a stop, it's in a dark parking garage. Chrissy pauses her music and wraps the headphone cord around her device before shoving it in one of the pockets of her jacket. She steps out of the car, sunglasses on, and instantly regrets letting her mother drag her out into public.

People stare when she follows her mother down several flights of stairs to get to a reception office, and up the elevator they go. They stop at several floors along the way to the eleventh floor, where the shrink is, and with each new person, Chrissy crams herself further into the back corner. This is such a bad idea.

Finally, the elevator hits floor eleven, and Chrissy shoves herself through the crowd of people to escape the soon-to-come claustrophobia. Her mother follows in suit, sending kind apologies to the people that her daughter had forced herself through. She nudges Chrissy to apologize as well, but the teenager can barely open her mouth before the doors shut. (She's thankful for elevators and their senses to awkward situations).

The office is not what she expected. It's dark and kind of depressing, and there are too many people in the room. Only a few look like people who should be there. The rest look like reporters, trying to get the latest news on why Chrissy Stark needs to see a shrink. Honestly, this makes her a bit uncomfortable. She's not as level-headed with new people as she would like to be, but she can be cheeky with the Barton family all the time and not worry a bit if she's going to regret the words that come out of her mouth. She guesses that the press just have a different atmosphere, because once the gossip is out there, it's out there. There's nothing anyone, not even her father, can do to stop it.

And that makes her so damn nervous.

She takes a seat in a corner, with her mother standing kind of off to the side. Of course, she's on her phone, probably arranging things for her super important meeting later with some big engineering company. Chrissy pats her pockets, looking for her device, before remembering: oh yeah. Her phone is _broken, _and her father hasn't been home to make her a new one. And she forgot her tablet.

Perfect.

Thankfully, it isn't long before she's called back. The instant she stands up, the reporters launch into questions, as if they had been waiting for this moment the whole time. Her mother continually says, "no comment," and guides Chrissy back further into the office. But even when the door closes behind them, she can still hear the constant questions being thrown at her.

"Does this have to do with your hospitalization a few months ago?"

"Is your father involved?"

"What is your view on bio-terrorism?"

The last one almost makes her smile. Good to know some things never change.

The last question she hears really sets her on edge.

"Is this about your brother?"

Chrissy freezes. Every joint in her body locks. She doesn't move. She can't move. The throng of questions behind her turns to background noise as memories resurface.

She blacks out.

* * *

The next morning, Chrissy wakes up to Tori Barton's red curls tickling her nose. "Good morning, sleepy head."

"Holy shit, Tori," she grumbles, poking her friend's face until she retreated. "Invasion of personal privacy, much?"

"Oh, you know you love it." Tori sits back on her her heels. "What are you doing today?"

Chrissy adjusts her pillow so it's parallel to the headboard before pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Sitting around. Moping. Did you not see the news?"

"I did." Tori shoots her a look of concern. "I'm so sorry, Chrissy. People will do horrible things just for a little piece of information that they don't need."

"Tell me about it," she grumbles. She swings her legs out from under the covers and hesitates as her bare feet touch the cool wood floors of her room, but stands on them anyways. Her back aches from her fall yesterday, and she's pretty sure that she did something to her shoulder. But she manages to grab a blue under-armor shirt and black sweatpants and make it into the bathroom alive. After poking her head out to tell Tori that she would only be about fifteen minutes, she closes the door and starts the hot water.

Chrissy reaches up and pulls the hair tie out of her brown locks, letting her waves fall over her shoulders and cascade down her back. She strips out of her pajamas, and leaving the water on high, steps under the stream. She adjusts the water pressure and just stands there. Why can't she stay this way forever?

Unfortunately, she has a guest, and has to get clean fast. _Sorry, hot water. Going to have to get a rain check on that stand-under-the-stream-forever date._

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Chrissy walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair. Tori is sprawled across her bed, reading one of her metaphysics books. Chrissy smirks at the sight of her friend picking up something science-related for once.

"How do you read these things?" Tori asks, sensing Chrissy's presence. "They're like textbooks."

"Because they _are _textbooks," Chrissy replies, taking the towel from her hair and throwing it at Tori, who catches it mid-flight without looking up from the book.

"Nice try," she mutters. "This is actually really interesting."

With a sigh, Chrissy walks over and plucks the book out of Tori's hands. "Come on. Are you going to make me do something or what?"

"We could watch TV?" she suggests, sitting up and bracing herself back on her hands. Chrissy makes a face.

"Yesterday and the news don't really mix," she grumbles. Tori nods understandably.

"Sparring?"

The idea of throwing punches at her best friend doesn't really appeal to her mood right now. Tori sees this and instantly amends the suggestion. "With Happy."

A smile spreads across Chrissy's face. "Perfect."

* * *

A half hour later, the girls are sliding combat gloves over their hands and compression socks on their ankles, just as a precaution. Tori's hair is French braided, and as soon as she gets her compression socks on, she slides off her gloves, shoves them into her waistband, and starts twisting Chrissy's into a ponytail.

"You know, I'm not always going to be here to do this," Tori teases, poking the back of Chrissy's neck with her free hand, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Yeah, but I'm too lazy to take my gloves off," she grumbles. Tori laughs and wraps the hair tie around the ponytail.

"Done." She pats the top of Chrissy's head and slips her gloves back on. Chrissy stands up and stretches her upper arm muscles. Her right shoulder aches, and she probably shouldn't be sparring, but she doesn't care. It'll help if she takes her anger out somewhere.

Fifteen minutes later, the girls are still waiting for Happy, and are doing things to pass the time. Chrissy decides to test out her shoulder using a punching bag, and Tori practices tight-rope walking on the cords surrounding the boxing ring. It's another five minutes before Chrissy's father comes in.

"Happy's busy," Tony says, Chrissy stops what she's doing to look at him.

"But he told us that he would spar with us," Chrissy says, her face beginning to slip into a pout.

"Sorry, kiddo."

He leaves, and Christy shoots Tori a glance. "What now?"

Tori's lips twitch into a smile. "Time to call in the twins."

* * *

Matthew and Michael Barton are thirteen years old, five years younger than Tori, but only two years younger than Chrissy. The boys are the spitting image of their father: close-cut brown hair and the pale blue eyes. They, like Tori, are being taught to master hand-to-hand combat and weaponry, and while far from their sister's skill, they make good sparring partners.

Perfect.

A bracket is set up, kind of like a championship, to keep things even. Winner gets exemption from one of Natasha's self defense seminars. Seems fair enough.

The twins won't fight each other first, and neither will the best friends. Michael and Chrissy will spar, followed by Matthew and Tori. The rules are as follows: first to keep their opponent on the ground for fifteen seconds wins. Simple enough, right?

As soon as Tori rings the bell to begin the fight between Michael and Chrissy, the thirteen-year-old jabs Chrissy straight in the jaw. She clenches and unclenches it for a moment, and finds her anger at the press. She channels that anger into energy and adrenaline, and charges for Michael, who looks terrified.

Chrissy isn't even aware of what happens next, but suddenly, Michael is on the floor, and she's straddling him. She can vaguely hear Tori begin counting while Michael tries to buck her off. Not going to happen, she thinks to herself. Chrissy's ears start working again as she hears the number fifteen be called, and then Michael groan in frustration. He shoves Chrissy off of him and storms out of the gym. One point for Stark.

Tori and Matthew were up next. Chrissy rings the bell and just watches in amazement as the siblings move with fluidity and put purpose into their strikes. She can hear them taunt each other for a second before Tori receives a well-placed uppercut to her abdomen. This gives her quite a shock, which gives Matthew enough time to bring her to the floor. Chrissy starts counting, but only gets to four before Tori switches their positions and is on top of her brother, his cheek pressed into the floor of the ring. Chrissy gets all the way to fifteen, and starts to feel a sense of dread. She'll be sparring Tori.

This is exactly what she was trying to avoid.

Tori takes a break to catch her breath and get some water, but as soon as Matthew finds Michael, the match begins.

They start out simply circling each other. Tori's glove begins to peel off, and, too impatient to fix them, takes off both of her gloves and tosses them aside. Chrissy does the same, and no one makes the first move until Chrissy trips over her own feet. Classic. Tori takes this opportunity to hit her directly in her right shoulder, sending pain flaring all up her right side. But she manages to find her anger at the press again, and once this is converted to energy, she sees a brief flash of fear in Tori's eyes. Brief being the key word.

Chrissy throws a combo, and then Tori throws one back. They block each other's hits so well that their bruises are mostly going to be from the blocking, which is a good thing. But when Chrissy slips up and Tori nails her straight in her solar plexus, she stumbles back into the ropes. Tori takes this opportunity and aims a punch at Chrissy's rib cage. But she doesn't account for Chrissy knees giving out slightly, therefore lowering herself, and the punch lands in the one place that it shouldn't.

The room is dead silent as soon as the sound of shattering glass fills the air. Tori retracts her arm, only to find her fist cut up and bloody. Chrissy looks down at her chest, and watches as the light that is muffled by her skin-tight shirt flickers several times before going completely dark.

Well, this is bad.


	2. Chapter 2

Chrissy takes a deep break and slowly lowers herself to the floor. Her father has told her what to do in conditions like this. If the reactor breaks, she needs to stay as calm as possible. This will ensure that her heart isn't working as hard, which gives her father more time to fix it. But, if she stresses about it, her heart will work faster, and will eventually give out, and she _will_ die.

Naturally, she opts for the calm approach.

"Oh my goodness," Tori whispers, on the brink of tears. She kneels down next to her friend. "What do we do?"

"Matthew, go find my dad or mom, okay?" Chrissy instructs. "Tell them what happened. They'll know what to do."

Matthew nods and speeds off. When Michael gives her a look, she nods, and he chases after his brother.

"Tori, do you know what my pulse oximeter looks like? The little device that goes over my finger?" Chrissy takes another deep breath as the fire in her chest slowly starts to grow. When Tori nods, she continues. "It's in the top drawer of my bed side table. Could you go get it?"

"Are you going to be okay alone?" Tori asks, taking Chrissy's hand and giving it a squeeze. Chrissy squeezes back and smiles.

"I'm never alone," she replies. "I've got JARVIS."

"_At your service, ma'am,_" the computer butler replies. Tori manages a little smile and nods before dashing out of the room.

And then, in one of the most terrifying moments of her life, Christine Stark is alone. (Well, besides JARVIS, but he doesn't really count.)

She tries to concentrate on her breathing. In, out, in, out. Nice, deep, slow breaths. Relaxing. She needs to relax. Everything will be okay, because there are extra reactors for this purpose exactly. She shouldn't worry; Tony will have her fixed up in no time.

Tori returns first with the pulse oximeter and a bottle of water. (Chrissy is, at this point, thankful for her best friend knowing every little nook and cranny of her room and where she likes to hide her shit.) She takes the meter from Tori and places it on her finger, pressing the button to turn it on. She waits while the meter analyses her pulse, and when it comes up as 132 beats per minute, she knows she needs to calm down, although this is partially caused by her recent sparring. Tony told her that the golden range for her in this situation was in between 80 and 120 bpm. Too fast, and her heart would beat out of control. Too slow, even at a normal resting rate, and it would simply slow to a stop.

Which is why she needs the reactor. To power the device that moderates her heart beats and make sure that they are appropriate and don't get out of hand. The device makes sure that when she's resting, her heart will slow to a resting rate, but it will maintain that rate. When she's exercising or in extreme activities, the device allows her heart rate to increase steadily, but once it reaches around 150 bpm, it makes a beeping noise, which tells Chrissy that she should probably stop whatever she's doing. Without the device, she wouldn't be able to do anything at all.

Tori ends up sitting with her legs crossed next to Chrissy, holding the hand that doesn't have the meter on it. The best friends just sit there until Tony barges in, demanding everyone to get out of the way. He picks up Chrissy with ease, looks at the meter (which is now at about 112 bpm), and carries her off at a moderately-brisk pace. He would replace the reactor right there, but Chrissy knows he can't. The hole is too small for his hand to fit through to disconnect and reconnect wires, so he has to do it from the lab.

Once they're in the lab, her mother carefully removes her shirt (thankfully she's wearing a sports bra) and places the sensor nodes in the correct positions on her chest while her father prepares what he'll need. It's almost like an operation. (Minus the fact that Chrissy won't be drugged, which is mildly disappointing.) Tori comes up and grasps her left hand—the one closest to the wall, and the one furthest out of the way—and continually apologizes for all of this. Both mother and daughter assure her that it isn't her fault. The situation is an accident, and Tori shouldn't hold it against herself. But, knowing Tori, she won't accept this until she's sure Chrissy is going to live.

Chrissy doesn't realize how scared she actually is until Tony approaches her with tweezers and begins to carefully remove the broken pieces of the reactor. Tori says that some of the glass was caught in her hand, but she pulled it out and threw it away.

"As long as it was just glass," he mutters under his breath as he continues to work. Once all of the debris is cleared away, he prepares to move the rest of the reactor from his daughter's chest. He takes a deep breath and slowly pulls the reactor from her chest, being extraordinarily careful just incase he missed any broken pieces. He takes one of the devices with a camera and light attached and goes inside the hole, carefully snipping the wires one by one.

Surprisingly enough, Chrissy can feel when he disconnects the wires. It's a weird feeling. Tony watches her heart rate for a minute, and after being satisfied with 100 bpm, places the broken reactor on the work table. He reaches for the new reactor and a rather eerie-looking tool. The wires go in her chest one by one, as he connects color with color. The wires aren't just twisted together; they're fused, and Chrissy winces each time a spark touches the walls of the metal chamber that holds the reactor.

"Sorry," Tony says sincerely. "Almost done…"

He connects the last wire then, and the reactor powers to life. Chrissy feels her heart skip a beat as the device begins to work again, and with a sigh of relief, she releases the tight grip that she didn't know she had on Tori's hand. Tony secures the reactor in place and allows Chrissy to sit up, but demands that the sensors be left on while her body adjusts to the new reactor. She looks over at Tori, who is smiling in relief, and can't help but mirror her expression.

Disaster adverted.

* * *

A few days after the reactor scare, Chrissy is on _her _floor—floor 90—playing away on the grand piano that she recently received for her fifteenth birthday. She has always had a passion for piano playing (and she's pretty good, according to her father, who doesn't lie), but until that fateful day several months ago, she was playing on an electric keyboard, and was missing several octaves, which made her mad. So her parents bought her a beautiful piano for her birthday—she woke up that morning and found it wrapped in a bow. Good times.

Tori had been at the Tower until this morning, demanding to her parents that she help her best friend (who wouldn't admit it, but was very gracious for Tori begin there) while she was recovering. After making her and her brothers swear to never speak a word of the day's events to anyone but their parents, the boys went home, but Tori stayed, and helped Chrissy in ways that she really didn't want. But Tori's presence was comforting, and she recovered faster than she anticipated. But, when Tori left unexpectedly, Chrissy was worried. Eventually, she figured that it was something to do with her parents being strict about not missing seminars, she got over it. Despite this, somewhere in the back of her head, a little voice is nagging her, telling her that Tori might not be okay. She tries to ignore that voice as much as possible, telling herself that Tori is fine. She always is.

An elevator _ding _pulls her out of Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata, _and she has to think for a moment. The list of people who can come to floors above the twentieth is very short, so she can only assume that it's her parents or Tori. But when she feels the hands on her shoulder—well built, strong hands—she knows exactly who it is.

Sure enough, when she turns around on the piano bench, there he is. Tom Rogers. (Why is she even surprised? Oh, yeah. Probably because of how undeniably attractive he is.) Tom is the same age as Tori—eighteen—and looks just as muscular as his father. But, she knows that this is a result of countless hours at the gym and eating nothing but protein and greens rather than a super-serum. And the way he smiles knocks any girl off her feet. Even his own sister.

So when he smiles at her, she feels her heart flutter against the will of the device, and a beeping noise sounds. She groans and pulls out the mini heart monitor that her dad is forcing her to wear until December. Her heart rate only went up a few counts. Why is it yelling at her? She shakes her head and clips the device back to the waistband of her sweatpants.

"Sorry about that," she says with a smile. "My dad is pretty insistent on my wearing this for a while."

"Yeah, I heard about the incident," he replies. "Are you okay?"

Chrissy feels all the blood rush from her face. "Who told you?"

"Your mother told mine, who told me." Tom shrugs.

"You tell _anyone _and I will rip you to pieces," she growls. He holds up his hands in a defensive gesture.

"Noted." Chrissy lets her guard down. "So how are you feeling?"

"Mostly? Annoyed." She breaks eye contact and begins to fiddle with the hair tie that resides around her left wrist. "Everyone is so worried that the new reactor isn't going to work because its a model my dad and I haven't tested yet—one that is stronger and better than the other one, which was still my first. It was going to go in eventually. I guess it just happened before planned."

"When was it originally going to be in?" he asks, pulling up the chair that she keeps up here just in case her mother drops by for a listen. (She really doesn't like sharing the bench.)

"Probably around next month, once we ran a few tests and threw it around." She shrugs. (And she does mean literally with the throwing around part. They were going to chuck it at a wall a few times and see how it held up.) "The first one wasn't meant to last me as long as it did. It was something that my dad put together quickly when—"

Chrissy's throat closes up. Still talking about her pre-reactor days gives her the chills, especially the ones towards the end. How vulnerable she had been. It makes her sick, and worried that if something ever happens to her reactor or device, and they can't be repaired in time…

Her phone ringing yanks her out of her nightmarish thoughts. She checks the caller ID, and with a quick apology to Tom, steps away to take the call.

"What, Tori?" she grumbles.

"Someone's not happy," Tori notes. "Listen, if your dad lets you, you should come over here and spend the night. The twins and I got permission to have a Jason Bourne marathon and you're invited. Of course, there will be a seminar in the morning, but I guess you can watch. Or something."

Chrissy sighs. "I'll ask in about a half hour. I'll call you back."

"Wait, Chris—" She presses the end button.

Chrissy walks back to the piano bench and sits back down. "Sorry about that."

"No problem," Tom assures her, smiling. Her heart flutters again, but the monitor doesn't beep. Chrissy, one. Monitor, one.

"So, what made you stop by?" she asks as politely as she could. She didn't mind Tom, really, but she really wants to get back to playing piano.

"Well, it wasn't my idea," he says. When he opens his mouth to add, the elevator door opens again, and a flying mass of blonde hair instantly attaches itself to Chrissy, almost sending her toppling off of the bench.

Her heart races. The monitor beeps furiously.

"Veronica, if you would kindly get off me before my dad comes up here and puts me back under constant surveillance," Chrissy gasps.

"Oh, sorry." The mass detaches themselves from Chrissy and she sits up straight, taking a few deep breaths before analyzing the new situation.

Veronica Rogers is an interesting case. Long blonde hair and hazel eyes are combined with the smallest frame that Chrissy has ever seen. Veronica is about 4'10", and weighs maybe 80 pounds. While Veronica hates this, she admits it has it's advantages. Sometimes, S.H.I.E.L.D. calls her in just because of her stature, so she's seen more missions than Chrissy and Tori combined. Which annoys both of them. But they have to tolerate Veronica. Most of the time, she's okay. It's just when they start to talk about missions that the best friends want to rip her face off.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Veronica says. "Mom told us about what happened and we were really worried. But Mr. Stark said to wait at least four days before visiting—"(Tori always gets through this rule somehow.)"—so we did. I'm just relieved to see you alive."

"Gee, thanks, Veronica," Chrissy replies in a sarcastically-hurt tone. "I'm upset that you didn't believe I could beat a stupid heart condition."

"Well, without the help of the reactor, you wouldn't be here, right?"

And that's another area where Veronica lacks skill—the ability to keep her mouth shut at the right time. Chrissy's heart begins to race again, and before she knows it, her father is telling the Rogers kids to get lost.

_Thank you, Dad._

* * *

A few hours after Tony forced Tom and Veronica to leave, Chrissy is in the car with her mother, duffel bag at her feet. Her parents surprisingly agreed to let her stay at the Barton's for the night, as long as she's careful in the seminar and doesn't do anything stupid. She has the medicine that she was prescribed so long ago; the medicine that, if the reactor fails, should keep her alive until her father can get there. But she's not worried about that happening. It's merely a precaution. They designed this reactor together, and it's probably one of the best that Tony's ever made. (Now that he doesn't have his reactor anymore, he has no need on improving his own. So he just pours all of his designs into ones for his daughter.)

When the car reaches the Barton apartment, the press is crowded around the entrance to the building. Just perfect. This is the last thing that Chrissy needs tonight, and she can feel her heart rate slowly increasing. But she takes a deep breath, practices her favorite line a few times in her head—_no comment_—and steps out of the car.

As soon as the door opens, reporters swarms around the car, asking her about her episode earlier that week, about her father, and numerous other things. Every once in a while, she says, "no comment," and in a few minutes, she's safely inside the apartment building. Hallelujah.

Chrissy heads for the elevator unnoticed, and it's only until after she presses the button that says thirteen, her phone buzzes in her pocket. She pulls out the device—brand new, made only a few days ago—and slides her thumb across the lock screen, opening the text automatically.

_Tori: You here yet?_

_Chrissy: Did you NOT see the mass of reporters outside?_

The elevator reaches the Barton floor quickly, only making one stop along the way. But as soon as the person sees Chrissy's intense glare, they back away, mumbling that they were waiting for the down elevator anyways.

Once the elevator stops on floor thirteen, Chrissy picks her duffel bag up off the floor and heads down the hall to find apartment 1305. She knocks on the door three times and waits. And waits. And waits. She shoots Tori several texts, and once she's been outside for about fifteen minutes she gives up and pulls a bobby pin from her up-do and starts picking the lock. She gets the first two tumblers to click before the door swings open, nearly taking Chrissy with it.

"Trying to pick the lock now, are we?" Natasha asks with a slight smirk on her face. Chrissy stands up and brushes herself off.

"I was getting impatient," she replies, slinging the duffel bag over her shoulder. Natasha steps aside to allow Chrissy to enter the apartment. The instant Chrissy steps in, she feels a rush of cold almost knock her back into the hallway. The apartment is like an arctic wasteland.

"Tori's in her room," Natasha says. "You can go and head up there if you want."

Chrissy nods and makes her way to the stairs, taking them more slowly than she normally would. When she reaches her friend's room at the end of the hallway, she knocks three times and enters the room.

Tori's room is more barren than she's used to, mainly because there aren't clothes strewn everywhere. Natasha must've forced her to clean up, which is pointless, because Chrissy has seen her room looking like a tornado has gone through and not cared. (Her's isn't much better.)

Must to Chrissy's surprise, Tori doesn't notice her entrance, or doesn't seem to care, at least. She's sitting on her bed, reading some book thicker that the metaphysics one of Chrissy's that she was reading the other day. She doesn't look up until Chrissy drops her duffel bag on the floor. (Rather loudly. She's trying to make a point.)

"Oh, hey, Chrissy," she mumbles, looking back at her book.

"Don't 'oh, hey' me," Chrissy says, taking off her combat boots and crawling onto Tori's bed, sitting next to her. "Normally at this point in a visit, you're trying to crack my ribs with a hug."

"Sorry to disappoint." She can hear sarcasm in Tori's voice, which is completely unlike her. Tori may be good at lying (very good, actually), but she's not fooling Chrissy.

"Come on, Tori," Chrissy complains. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

Chrissy throws her hands up in the air as a show of exasperation before sliding back on the bed, her feet almost touching the end. "Tori, please. Don't play this game with me."

Tori shoots the younger girl a glare before slamming the book shut. "Everything is perfectly fine, Chrissy. Stop bothering me about it."

"That's my job, though." Chrissy smirks, but her face falls soon after. "Tori, you've been there for me these past few days. Let me return the favor. I know you're not alright, and I know there's something you're not telling me. So what's wrong?"

With a sigh, Tori turns to face her friend. Chrissy can see that, now that she's let her guard down, she's terrified. Absolutely terrified. Chrissy pulls herself into a sitting position and reaches for Tori's hand.

"They called me in." Her voice is nearly a whisper. "They want me to go on a mission."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Chrissy asks. Tori nods. "What's so bad about a mission? You've been on at least thirty."

"_Alone_," is nearly a whisper.

"Oh."

Chrissy knows that Tori's biggest fear is being kidnapped or taken hostage. Because she's the daughter of the Black Widow, people will do anything to get at her mother, and Tori is probably the best way of doing that. Even after countless self-defense seminars and a staged kidnapping by a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (in which Tori kicked major ass and escaped within hours), she's still terrified of the idea. She gets nightmares in the same way Chrissy gets allergy colds in the fall: frequently, and they're always messy. Once, she accidentally hit one of the twins because she thought she was still in the nightmare.

"Tori, it'll be okay," Chrissy comforts. An idea comes to mind, and she slides of the bed and walks over to where her duffel bag is. After a few minutes of digging, she pulls out a small black box. She climbs back onto the bed and opens the box. It contains two earpieces.

"What are those?" Tori asks quietly. Chrissy smiles and takes one out of the padding, handing it to Tori.

"A gift from my dad, a while back," she explains. "These earpieces are linked together on an encrypted network. They'll only talk to each other, and no one can intercept what's being said between them."

"How do you know the encryption's good?"

"Trust me." A smile. "My dad and I both worked on them, and then asked some of the best hackers we know to try and crack our conversation. Didn't work."

"Really?"

"Really." Tori smiles. "When's your mission?"

"Tuesday."

Today is Sunday. Damn, that's close.

"Wear this all day Tuesday, and I'll wear mine. If you run into any issues, I'll be there."

She should've expected what comes next, but she didn't. Tori throws her arms around Chrissy and pulls her into that rib-crushing hug that she actually misses. (But she's not going to admit that.) She hugs her friend back, of course, and they stay like that until the sensors on Chrissy's chest are pressing rather uncomfortably into her skin. Tori releases her with a huge smile.

"Can we test them?"

Chrissy smiles. "I thought you'd never ask."

She slides off the bed and nearly trips down the stairs as she heads for the point in the apartment that's the furthest away from Tori's room—the kitchen. Her sock-covered feet slip and slide on the tile once she reaches the kitchen and she plants herself in a barstool. After a few looks from Natasha, she takes a deep breath and talks into the earpiece.

"See?" Chrissy says. Even from her place in the kitchen, she can hear Tori's scream, which is followed by a loud _thud. _"Jeez, Tori, it's not _that_ exciting. You've had earpieces before."

"Yeah, but this one is cooler!" she exclaims. "Get back up here so I can hug you again."

"I don't know, Tori," Chrissy teases. "Another hug and these sensors might be permanently fused to my chest."

"I'll be gentle." She can hear Tori pouting.

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Just get up here."

"Yes, ma'am."


End file.
